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Entries in Leave Policies
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Navigating the Family & Medical Leave Act is difficult, there’s no question about that—but with an acute sense of where major pitfalls often hide, you are in a better position to navigate the difficulties that most often accompany sticky FMLA issues. On Wednesday, October 25 from 7:45am to 9:30am, Verrill Dana's Labor & Employment Group will host a complimentary seminar, providing all skill levels with the tools they need to appropriately respond to and track FMLA leave. Panel discussions of real-life scenarios will provide attendees with skills as to navigating intermittent leave requests and unresponsive doctors with an ever-present discussion of what these scenarios would look like in litigation. Speakers include Verrill Dana labor and employment attorneys Doug Currier, Rob Brooks, Tawny Alvarez, and Joanna Bowers. Learn more about the event and register online here.

We talk a lot about the parameters of leave programs. New state laws that are popping up regularly that expand on employee leave rights. While we focus on the legal aspects of all leave laws, we do recognize the importance of having leave policies that work for the culture of your organization. Many companies in the United Kingdom are doing just that.

A Scotland-based craft beer company, BrewDog, is offering leave to employees welcoming new four-legged members into their family. BrewDog, a brewery started in Scotland that has since expanded internationally with over 1,000 employees is offering a week of paid “Pawternity” or “Mutternity” leave to any employee welcoming a new dog into their family.

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon announced last week that in April Wal-Mart will pay its employees a minimum of $9.00 an hour—$1.75 more than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. Going a step further, by February of 2016, Wal-Mart has announced that its lowest hourly rate of pay will rise to $10.00 per hour. This change will affect approximately half a million Wal-Mart workers throughout the United States .

On his last day in office, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law an amendment to the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act (“MMLA”), extending coverage of the Act to male employees. The new law will go into effect April 7, 2015, and will provide male employees the same rights afforded to female employees: eight weeks of job-protected leave for the birth or adoption of a child. The law was further expanded to cover leaves of absence for the placement of a child with an employee pursuant to court order. The MMLA applies to employers with six or more employees.